[Dovecot] Problem with dovecot on home LAN
At present I get email directly on my laptop in /var/spool/mail/* through uucp. I'd like to get the email in the same directory on my desktop (alfred), and then run a mail server on the destop and collect the email on my laptop (william) (or on other computers on my two little home LANs, ethernet and WiFi).
I was advised that dovecot was a good imap server for this purpose (I tried cyrus-imapd, but decided it was too complicated), so I'm running dovecot on alfred (my desktop), with the following /etc/dovecot.conf (minus comments):
imap_listen = * pop3_listen = * login_dir = /var/run/dovecot-login login = imap login = pop3 default_mail_env = mbox:~/mail/:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/%u mbox_locks = fcntl auth = default auth_mechanisms = plain auth_userdb = passwd auth_passdb = pam auth_user = root auth_verbose = yes
I am able to access my desktop with telnet from my laptop:
[tim@william ~]$ telnet alfred 143 Trying 192.168.1.1... Connected to alfred. Escape character is '^]'.
OK dovecot ready. x login tim <password> x OK Logged in. ^] telnet> quit Connection closed.
Unfortunately, neither fetchmail not KMail on my laptop seem able to retrieve mail from my desktop.
With fetchmail I get the error message:
[tim@william ~]$ fetchmail alfred fetchmail: Server CommonName mismatch: localhost.localdomain != alfred fetchmail: Server CommonName mismatch: localhost.localdomain != alfred 10 messages for tim at alfred. reading message tim@alfred.murphy.ie:1 of 10 (765 header octets) fetchmail: fetchmail: getaddrinfo(localhost.smtp) fetchmail: SMTP connect to localhost failed fetchmail: SMTP transaction error while fetching from alfred fetchmail: Query status=10 (SMTP)
My .fetchmailrc on william reads
poll alfred proto IMAP user "tim" password "whatever"
I have no better luck trying to retrieve mail with KMail on the laptop, after adding the following entry to KMail=>Settings=>Configure KMail=>Network=>Receiving
Name: dovecot Login: tim Password: <password> Host: alfred Port: 143 Prefix to folders: /var/spool/mail/
(I also tried with "Prefix to folders:" empty.)
When I start KMail on william I get the message "Checking account dovecot for new mail", but no mail comes over, and I see no error in the log files on either machine (although I may have missed something there).
I should say that I am running Fedora-3 with all programs up-to-date.
Apologies for the long message; any suggestions of advice gratefully received.
--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
Timothy Murphy wrote:
At present I get email directly on my laptop in /var/spool/mail/* through uucp. I'd like to get the email in the same directory on my desktop (alfred), and then run a mail server on the destop and collect the email on my laptop (william) (or on other computers on my two little home LANs, ethernet and WiFi).
I was advised that dovecot was a good imap server for this purpose (I tried cyrus-imapd, but decided it was too complicated), so I'm running dovecot on alfred (my desktop),
If I understand, the mail arrives on Laptop (William) (through uucp) so the mail boxes are on William so You must install dovecot on William.
Netherless If you want dovecot running on Desktop (Alfred), you need setup up the arrival of mail on Alfred.
You cannot have mailboxes on alfred and dovecot on William (and vice versa)
except if you use NFS or some network sharing.
the imap server reside on the same side of the smtpd server
that's my advice.
On Tuesday 07 December 2004 13:38, jean-Noël Chardron wrote:
At present I get email directly on my laptop in /var/spool/mail/* through uucp. I'd like to get the email in the same directory on my desktop (alfred), and then run a mail server on the destop and collect the email on my laptop (william) (or on other computers on my two little home LANs, ethernet and WiFi).
I was advised that dovecot was a good imap server for this purpose (I tried cyrus-imapd, but decided it was too complicated), so I'm running dovecot on alfred (my desktop),
If I understand, the mail arrives on Laptop (William) (through uucp) so the mail boxes are on William so You must install dovecot on William.
At present email is arriving at william (my laptop). _I want to change this_ so that email arrives at alfred (my desktop) - I have no difficultly setting that up - and then dovecot running as imap server on alfred allows me to retrieve the email when I am on william.
Netherless If you want dovecot running on Desktop (Alfred), you need setup up the arrival of mail on Alfred.
You cannot have mailboxes on alfred and dovecot on William (and vice versa)
Quite. I have dovecot working on alfred. When I am able to retrieve email from alfred to william, I shall change my uucp setting so that email comes to alfred's /var/spool/mail/ .
the imap server reside on the same side of the smtpd server that's my advice.
I am afraid you have misunderstood my question.
I cannot presently retrieve email from alfred to william using either fetchmail or KMail. That is my problem.
--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
On Tuesday 07 December 2004 16:20, viebig wrote:
I hope I understood you right : -Alfred , the Desktop has the mail
- Willi , The Laptop should only access ( reed, write, delete...) them
Exactly.
On Alfred you will need fetchmail to get your mails from your Provider ( some server usually provided by your ISP ) These Mails are usually stored in your mail folder .
I collect my email by uucp. This is working perfectly, and I can collect it either on my laptop or on my desktop. At present I collect it on my laptop. If and when I get dovecot working I shall collect it on my desktop. I do not need fetchmail for this purpose.
To check them from your Laptop (Willi ) you need another software that works like an pop or imap server. The one you choosed is dovecot. So you do not need fetchmail on your laptop. On your laptop you will need a email client like Kmail, or even OE (on Windows). If you use imap the mail remains on the desktop (Alfred ) except you copy something on your local folders. Hope it helped..
I know I do not _need_ fetchmail. I am simply using it to test dovecot. If everything worked, I would use KMail on my laptop to access my email on the desktop.
Surely there must be people using dovecot on a home LAN in this way?
--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
I do. no uucp but fetchmail... Adrian
Timothy Murphy wrote:
I know I do not _need_ fetchmail. I am simply using it to test dovecot. If everything worked, I would use KMail on my laptop to access my email on the desktop.
Surely there must be people using dovecot on a home LAN in this way?
Timothy Murphy wrote:
Unfortunately, neither fetchmail not KMail on my laptop seem able to retrieve mail from my desktop.
With fetchmail I get the error message:
[tim@william ~]$ fetchmail alfred fetchmail: Server CommonName mismatch: localhost.localdomain != alfred fetchmail: Server CommonName mismatch: localhost.localdomain != alfred 10 messages for tim at alfred. reading message tim@alfred.murphy.ie:1 of 10 (765 header octets) fetchmail: fetchmail: getaddrinfo(localhost.smtp) fetchmail: SMTP connect to localhost failed fetchmail: SMTP transaction error while fetching from alfred fetchmail: Query status=10 (SMTP)
OK. First there's the name problems, which fetchmail seems to be warning (not erroring) about. But it does seem to fetch the e-mail.
Then, however, it can't connect to the local mail server on william. From my memory of fetchmail, it requires you to run a MTA on the local machine for it to deliver to. Have you remembered to install and start something like postfix, exim, or even sendmail?
My .fetchmailrc on william reads
poll alfred proto IMAP user "tim" password "whatever"
I have no better luck trying to retrieve mail with KMail on the laptop, after adding the following entry to KMail=>Settings=>Configure KMail=>Network=>Receiving
Name: dovecot Login: tim Password: <password> Host: alfred Port: 143 Prefix to folders: /var/spool/mail/
(I also tried with "Prefix to folders:" empty.)
When I start KMail on william I get the message "Checking account dovecot for new mail", but no mail comes over, and I see no error in the log files on either machine (although I may have missed something there).
So long as you have alfred in your /etc/resolv.conf, I can't see any specific reason why this wouldn't work. I have used K-Mail with dovecot quite happily (though I've now moved to using Thunderbird).
Have you subscribed to all of the folders? Though it ought to at least spot the inbox, it's worth double checking.
I should say that I am running Fedora-3 with all programs up-to-date.
Apologies for the long message;
Better to have more information and not need it, than...
Hope I've helped some..
-- Curtis Maloney
participants (4)
-
Curtis Maloney
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jean-Noël Chardron
-
Timothy Murphy
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viebig